ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit organization, dedicates itself to bringing the discipline of applied scientific research to healthcare to uncover the best approaches to improving patient care. As pioneers in this science for nearly 40 years, ECRI Institute marries experience and independence with the objectivity of evidence-based research. ECRI Institute is designated a Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization and an Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). ECRI Institute has planned and conducted sixteen annual conferences that address issues of vital importance in the use of evidence in policy and practice. Each of our sixteen conferences has been focused on topics of great interest and importance to AHRQ. The 2009 conference, "Comparative Effectiveness and Personalized Medicine: An Uneasy but Essential Interface," is programmatically linked to last year's conference on comparative effectiveness. These events are constructed like collaboratively edited books aimed at telling a story behind an emerging issue that is important for policy and practice, and that needs the support of rigorous methodologies to bring evidence into the deliberations. The 2007 and the 2008 ECRI conferences, and the one planned for 2009, all address different, critical aspects of comparative effectiveness. They should be seen as three parts of an effort to provide a fuller understanding of key issues in comparative effectiveness for policymakers and practitioners in the public and private sectors. The 2009 conference will consist of three sections: 1) clinical technologies;2) IT technologies;and 3) behavioral aspects of using these technologies. Science, public demand, and industry perspectives will all be addressed. The difficulties posed by "personalized" technology assessment pose a challenge to the evolving field of comparative effectiveness and to the national effort to make comparative effectiveness a more robust part of the healthcare system. Conference participants in the past, and expected to participate in 2009, include senior executives, clinicians, and researchers from health plans and insurers, provider organizations, employers, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, research organizations and consumer groups, and State and Federal government agencies, as well as elected officials and members of the judiciary. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: ECRI Institute has planned and conducted sixteen annual conferences that address issues of vital importance in the use of evidence in policy and practice. Each of our sixteen conferences has been focused on topics of great interest and importance to AHRQ. The 2009 conference, "Comparative Effectiveness and Personalized Medicine: An Uneasy but Essential Interface," is programmatically linked to ECRI last two conferences on comparative effectiveness. These events are constructed like collaboratively edited books aimed at telling a story behind an emerging issue that is important for policy and practice, and that needs the support of rigorous methodologies to bring evidence into the deliberations. The 2007 and the 2008 ECRI conferences, and the one planned for 2009, all address different, critical aspects of comparative effectiveness. They should be seen as three parts of an effort to provide a fuller understanding of key issues in comparative effectiveness for policymakers and practitioners in the public and private sectors.